July 2025 Crypto Heists Hit $142M—27% Spike in Hacks Shakes Digital Asset Space

Crypto’s Wild West Era Isn’t Over Yet

Another month, another nine-figure haul for blockchain bandits. July’s security breaches prove DeFi’s ‘trustless’ mantra cuts both ways—hackers just trusted their skills more than your smart contracts.

The $142 Million Haul

Attackers bypassed safeguards like it was 2017 ICO season, with cross-chain bridges remaining the digital equivalent of leaving vault doors ajar. The 27% monthly surge suggests criminals are outpacing auditors—or that projects still treat security like an afterthought.

Wall Street’s Cynical Take

Traditional finance wonks are already sneering—‘$142M? That’s just Tuesday lunch money for JPMorgan’s compliance fines.’ But in crypto’s permissionless world, every exploit writes the playbook for tomorrow’s fixes. The tech evolves fast; the thieves evolve faster.

July 2025 Sees a Sharp Increase in Crypto Hacks

In the latest post on X (formerly Twitter), PeckShield noted that 17 major hacks were recorded in July, amounting to losses of $142 million. This figure represents a reversal of the 56% decline in losses recorded in June ($111.6 million), when 15 major hacks were documented. 

Nonetheless, the security firm identified five prominent incidents as the primary contributors to the total amount lost. 

The Indian cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX suffered the largest single loss. Hackers stole approximately $44.2 million by targeting an internal operational account. 

“Today, one of our internal operational accounts – used only for liquidity provisioning on a partner exchange – was compromised due to a sophisticated server breach. I confirm that the CoinDCX wallets used to store customer assets are not impacted and are completely safe,” CoinDCX Co-founder and CEO Sumit Gupta said.

Notably, hackers installed malware on Rahul Agarwal’s laptop, a software engineer at CoinDCX, under the pretext of offering him a part-time job. Initially, Agarwal performed online tasks using his personal laptop, but later switched to his office laptop.

This allowed the hackers to infiltrate the system. While Agarwal reportedly claimed to be unaware of the theft, the Bengaluru police have arrested him in connection with the incident.

Meanwhile, the second largest contributor to the stolen funds in July was the GMX hack. BeInCrypto reported that the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform GMX experienced a $42 million exploit in early July.

“Notably, the GMX exploiter has returned ~$40.5 million worth of cryptos, including 10,000 ETH and 10.5 million FRAX,” PeckShield wrote.

Furthermore, BigONE exchange reported a $28 million loss, while WOO X and Future Protocol recorded breaches of around $12 million and $4.2 million, respectively, further illustrating the diverse targets of malicious actors.

July’s data aligns with the pattern of increasing crypto hacks this year. In H1 2025, the industry experienced over $2 billion in losses from crypto thefts, raising concerns among industry stakeholders about the adequacy of current security measures. 

While some platforms, like CoinDCX, are introducing bug bounty programs to encourage ethical hacking and vulnerability reporting, the recurring nature of these incidents highlights the need for stronger safeguards.